EXTRACTS FROM MR. PARRIS'S CHURCH RECORDS.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
Upham, Charles Wentworth
Samuel Phillips.
*Joseph Boynton.
James Allen.
*Richard Middlecot.
Samuel Torrey.
*John Walley.
Samuel Willard.
*Jer: Dummer.
Edward Payson.
*Nehemiah Jewet.
Cotton Mather.
[The names of the lay members of the Council are marked thus, *. They were persons of high standing in civil life. Samuel Checkley was not (as stated [Supplement, p. 494], through an inadvertence, of which, I trust, not many such instances can be found in these volumes) the Rev. Mr. Checkley, but his father, Col. Samuel Checkley, a citizen of Boston, of much prominence at the time.
The foregoing document is skilfully drawn. While kindly in its tone towards Mr. Parris, it is, in reality, a strong condemnation of his course, especially in Article I., as also in the paragraph marked (a), (p. 549), "added by the desire of the Council" to his "Meditations for Peace." Article III. discountenances the proceedings of his church in its censure of "the dissatisfied brethren," and requires that they should be recognized and treated as members in good standing. The fifth article administers rebuke with an equal hand to both sides, while the sixth and last recommends the removal of Mr. Parris, if the alienation of his opponents should prove "incurable."
As an authoritative condemnation of the proceedings related in this work, pronounced at the time, it is a fitting final close of the presentation of this subject.]